


WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath

by TrippleThreatTrio (Sombereyes)



Series: Whispers of the War Maidens [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fluff, Mild Sexual Content, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:41:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7109641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sombereyes/pseuds/TrippleThreatTrio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We hereby swear that as the sixteenth heads of the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance that we will entrust the oaths that were once entrusted to us. In order to do this, we will bear the seventeenth heirs to our respective clans. This is one of the many promises we made, and now, it’s time to fulfill our oath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Another story in the Whispers of the War Maidens universe. This was an idea we tossed around for a while before ultimately deciding to leave it out of any of the major sagas, and instead make it a story all of its own. Don't worry if you haven't read anything else from the series, you can enter this with a clean slate. That being said, since Ino's and Karui's saga stores haven't been posted yet, you can consider this a glimpse into some of what each of their respective stories will cover in the future.
> 
> Those of you who have been following the Temari centric stories may notice a few tiny references to some of her plot points.
> 
> Additionally, those of you who have read other installments of this universe, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's par-for-the-course. However, this is strictly a romance fiction, and it does feature several segments of "light lemon" content as a result. Expect lots of emotions from the three married couples featured in this work; Shikamaru/Temari, Karui/Choji, and Ino/Sai. Also, if the Whispers of the War Maidens series interests you, don't forget to check out the other works.)

 

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 1**

For a married woman, she all too often found her bed cold at night.

Really, it was a good thing she liked being independent, because Shikamaru always worked late. She couldn't blame him, he had village matters to tend to, and one Hokage in training to chase after until he was blue in the face. Even though Kakashi implored Naruto to take his time, the blonde was too busy running headlong after his goals, inadvertently dragging Shikamaru, Kakashi's assistant in training, along with him.

She wished that Shikamaru was home, in bed, making love to her. However, as it stood, the only companion for her was the bright moon and stars above.

Sadly, there was no shooting star that she could cast her deepest wishes upon. Not that it mattered. She was sure that the stars never would answer her, so she had stopped praying to them long ago. Instead, she rolled over, grasping onto her husband's shirt. They weren't practical to sleep in. She blamed her large chest for that, she couldn't fit in them.

He would probably laugh now, if he saw her cuddling into his favorite sleeping tunic.

Still, she allowed herself the guilty pleasure. Her mind was on other things, drifting to the next day, and her hand rested over her belly, and then slid just a little lower. Hopes a prayers chipping away in her mind once more. Maybe this time...maybe, but she wouldn't find out until the next day.

Knowing that made her restless. She couldn't even sleep long enough to dream.

* * *

Morning came, and so with it came the doctor appointment Temari had been agonizing over.

"There's no way."

"That's what the tests show."

"There's no fucking way."

False positive…

That phrase was starting to piss Temari off to no end. She was sure, damn sure, she had heard wrong. There had to come a day when she rose to the occasion. Temari knew first hand that it would have to be sooner, rather than later. She also knew that this was not how she wanted it to go. She promised Shikamaru she would give him a child. She promised...

So why the hell wasn't her body doing what she wanted it to do?

"You're kidding. Please tell me it's some kind of sick joke?" Temari looked pleadingly to Ino, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip.

"Relax, it happens." Ino replied with a small shrug. "I can give you a full exam as many times as you want, but that answer isn't going to change. It just takes time."

"Not on my side of the family. My mother didn't have this kind of trouble."

"Temari, it'll be okay, trust me."

"Fuck, she had Kankuro and I nearly back to back. We're only a little over a year a part. I shouldn't be having this kind of trouble." Temari growled as she flung herself off of the medical table, bare feet slapping onto the floor. "Ino this is ridiculous. We've tried everything. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you. Actually, your chances of conception are better than most." Ino said with a roll of her eyes as she pulled off her gloves. "You have none of the regular scar tissue I normally see in kunoichi, and you still have both of your ovaries. At your age, a lot of female ninja have had their uterus removed after sustaining injuries."

Temari knew that she was lucky, but that was more because of her fighting style than anything else. "Then why can't I get pregnant?"

"It's his bloodline, not yours." Ino thought long and hard about divulging the best kept truth of their allied clans. At first, Ino had kept it quiet, but Temari was starting to blame herself. That wasn't going to be good. "The fact is, our three clans respond well to each other's chakra, and our pheromones. We're hardwired to reproduce within our community. If you were Yamanaka, Akimichi, or Nara born woman, you wouldn't be having this problem. In fact, most of the time Yamanaka women are trying to stop pregnancies, not get them."

"Why didn't Shikamaru tell me this?" Temari demanded to know.

"I don't think he knows." Ino murmured.

"Then why didn't you?"

Ino took a breath. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to. It's not exactly common knowledge, even among our clans."

"Ino, he and I have been at this for almost two years with no result." To say she was just a little upset was a huge understatement. "I was starting to think it was me."

"You know it's not you. Sakura, Shizune, and I have already told you, you are fully capable of having children." Still, she understood Temari's lament. "It's been six generations since a leader married outside of the three clans. Even worse, it's not just one of us, all three of us did." Ino pinched the bridge of her nose. "It works both ways, you know. Sai isn't going to have an easy time impregnating me either."

"Well, there's got to be something." Of that, Temari had been sure. There had to be a failsafe, all clans had something in place to determine rank and order. "If we don't conceive, what members step up? Is it taken to a vote, or do we just adopt in an orphan or surrogate when they're young?"

"We take food pills." Ino said. "There's a recipe protected by our clans to remedy this, but it takes time to make."

"Why? Fertility herbs are pretty common, aren't they?"

Ino made a noise, someplace between a yes and a no. "It requires time to grow the herbs. Also, Akimichi clan recipes normally come at a cost, and this pill isn't any different. It would ultimately require a great deal of chakra to even activate them daily. The chakra needed would easily put any formation team out of the mission rosters."

"What?" Then it dawned on Temari. "It truly requires that much?"

"Yes, and formation teams, as a village rule, must have every member mission ready." Ino nodded, truth be told, she fully expected this. "Even when we act independently, we must be prepared to deploy. Who knows when we will have to help our formation members in a moment's notice."

"Which means, Shikamaru and I can't use them unless we're willing to pull Choji and Sai out of the ANBU rosters for a while." Temari hated to admit it, but sometimes she loathed clan politics and regulations. "Would he be willing to do that?"

"Sooner or later, he'll have to be. Let's just sit on this for now." She had been growing the rare ingredients they would need ever since she heard about Shikamaru's proposal to Temari. "If Sai and I ride out our first year of marriage and we don't conceive, I'm going to assume that the food pills are the only option. At that point, we'll resort to the old formation contingency plan for this. Until then, keep giving yourself some time, you may get lucky."

"I hate this…"

"Tem?"

"I'm a woman aren't I?" Temari hissed out a hard breath. "I follow everything to the letter, so does Shika. Did you know I actually jumped him in the training ground when he didn't come home during the window of opportunity?" She ripped off the gown that the office gave her, flinging it into the nearby hamper with force. Cussing at length, she gathered her clothes. "The more I think about it…the more I realize, I want a baby. When Shikamaru and I first started screwing each other, I didn't really think about it much. I knew I was going to marry him. I figured a kid would come from that sooner or later…but…god damn it!"

"Get changed, and you can come to my place for dinner." Ino suggested then, knowing that Shikamaru was going to be pulling another late night. "Mom will be there too, so we'll just kick Sai out and call the rest of the formation ladies. When was the last time we had an all-out gossip fest over dinner?"

"God I don't even remember." Temari sighed as she finished pulling her clothes on. "I have to admit, I could use a little bit of that right now."

"Great it's settled then." Ino smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Not entirely. "Tem, really though, try to have fun, and don't think on it so much. You'll be a mother soon enough..." Ino swallowed hard then, her hand resting her own midriff. "You, Me, and Karui."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 2**

Months passed.

Temari coiled herself tighter by the day, a twisting vortex of emotion that Shikamaru didn't ask about –and Temari didn't try to explain.

He waited and waited, let the days slowly drag on by. Before he knew it, it was exactly one week after Ino and Sai's first wedding anniversary.

The formation planned their contingency, and Temari coiled tighter. Tiny things she normally blew off made her all the more agitated. He found that keeping quiet was the best thing one could do in these situations. Temari would eventually talk to him, when the moment for her to do that was right for her. That was the price of being married with such a woman.

He danced to her tune, it wasn't the other way around.

He would just have to shut up and wait. Just wait, and stay the hell out of her way when she was talking to Yoshino. Although why Temari even did that baffled him, because Temari wasn't exactly fond of her mother-in-law. Strangely enough though, the women had found something to bond over. It was a topic he didn't dare touch with a ten foot pole.

"You really weren't kidding when you told me that they did everything together…" Temari had never seen Shikamaru's baby photos before.

Yoshino hadn't offered to pull them out until very recently. "A formation raised together, stays together. We all believed in that. Besides, it's just easier to help each other out when you have little ones." Even now, seeing photos of her late husband Shikaku left the retired ninja misty-eyed. "See, this one here, this was an almost nightly sight. Once they could toddle around, there was no stopping them."

Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were curled up on a mound of baby blankets on the floor. Choji had his hand in his mouth. Shikamaru was scrunched up in the tiniest ball he could seem to roll himself into, his little diaper clad butt in the air. Ino had somehow managed to squish herself between the two of them haphazardly. Temari wasn't surprised by the sight, but she did end up laughing a little harder than she meant to. "How did they even manage to get that way?"

"The same way they managed everything back then, by raising hell. You couldn't separate the three of them for anything." Yoshino gushed fondly. "Choji never strayed far from the hip unless Shikamaru was around. Although I can say this, Shikamaru was not a go-with-the flow kind of baby. If I threw him off of his schedule even a little, he was cranky the rest of the day." Idly her finger tapped at the picture in question. "Ino, now she was the go-getter of the group."

"So, they haven't changed much by the sounds of it." Temari wondered about that, looking over to the next page, another round of toddler photos. "Shikamaru only goes along with things now because it's the easy way out. He knows he can't control the world, so there isn't any bother trying."

Yoshino agreed, but for a different reason. "That is entirely Ino's doing, I'm sure. She was the ringleader of any and all common place mischief." Yoshino said dryly, recalling several moments of troublesomeness. "Her father always called her a little ball of sass, but it was my little shit that went along with it." As if something came to mind, Yoshino grinned darkly. "Ino wasn't the one who figured out how to use the kitchen drawers as ladder. That was Shikamaru through and through. You should have seen the day he climbed up onto the counter."

"He got stuck up there, didn't he?" Temari asked, that certainly sounded like something a young and adventurous Shikamaru would do.

"I stood in the doorway and let all three of them wail for a good five minutes. As soon as I picked him up and put him back on the floor with the other two, Ino practically tackled him." Yoshino nodded, remembering how her boy had scrunched himself up in the corner of the counter. "I wanted him to scare himself that time, because he was a climber. My worst fear was that he was going to get up into someplace when I wasn't looking, fall, and really hurt himself."

Temari knew that her husband was listening in on their conversation from the living room. He pretended not to, but every now and then he would twitch, or make a small scuffle. Her fingers gently curled themselves into fists, wondering if her future child would ever worry her that badly. That got her thinking, and when Shikamaru looked up, they locked eyes.

The anxiety behind the mask had just skyrocketed, locked away by the depths of her green eyes.

Noticing that she blinked away that emotion again, he got up and casually walk out of the house, in search of his formation. He couldn't explain the need, it was just there, clawing at him. As if Choji and Ino could help him fix all of his problems.

* * *

Over in the Akimichi compound, Choji sat down with a cup of hot chocolate and sighed contently, watching as the marshmallows melted in the mug. It wasn't a delight he had very often, but he allowed himself to enjoy the flavor when it reached his tongue. He always knew that one day, he would have to keep his end of the promise, but he still didn't think of himself as much of a father figure.

Hell, he still didn't think he was very good as the clan leader either, even though he had been told otherwise.

"Choji, I'm back." Karui called as she entered into the sitting area where she knew she would find him.

"How did the mission go?" There was an timid worry in his voice. Distant, but clear. His eyes raked over her form, looking for any white bandages along her dark skin. Any sign she may have been hurt during her travels in solitude.

"Fine, Kumogakure hasn't changed much since I last visited. I went back to find the usual idiocy." She smiled faintly at that. "Omoi had the pleasure of reacquainting himself with my fist. Darui is going to take over as the Raikage, so he's learning the ropes." She passed by him, placing a hand on his shoulder as she did. That small contact put the last of his worries to rest.

"Sounds rather lively." Choji said, rather contented to see that she had made it home safe. It was only after he watched her shrug off the backpack that he cleared his throat. "Now that you're home, I can tell you that all of the details. The formation contingency has finally been worked out. Ino will probably call you over to her house in the near future."

Karui draped herself across his lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him deeply. They lingered like that for a while afterwards, eyes closed in that quiet moment. "This vacation will be good for us in more ways than one, you'll see." Golden eyes slipped open then, and she let her fingers run across the binds that kept Choji's armor in place. "You're always working late, and I know I'm not the only one who has something to say about that." She started untying them, lifting the heavy metal up and away so that it would no longer get between them. "This is so much better."

"I'm sorry." He knew he wasn't home much, mission assignments being what they were. "I end up going on the safe ones, but that comes at the price of time. I won't be doing any more of that for a while though. I promise."

"So, what were you looking over before I interrupted you?" She asked, lifting up a set of papers that had the Akimichi seal.

Choji rested his head on her shoulder, leaving gentle kisses along the nape of her neck. "Reports from deployed Akimichi guards. Several have been stationed along the outposts, and they've noticed some activity from outsiders."

"I see." She glanced over them, a small breathy sigh of contentment slipping from her lips when she felt Choji's hands snake around her waist. He pulled her more tightly to his chest. She leaned into him as she continued to read. "Seems like our squads have found a few skirmishes to the south. Talk about pissed off merchants." Karui wasn't surprised though. The travelers always seemed to be in a bad mood around this time of year. "Are the reports accurate, or are they judging by hearsay?"

"A little of both, I think." Choji told her honestly. "Nothing I'd be worried about, though." His nose caught a whiff of something pleasant and flowery. "Jasmine perfume?"

As he kissed her neck once more, Karui smirked. "Mmm." It was nice to have something extravagant every once in a while, though she didn't often admit it. "Ino's been taking lessons from Sakura. They've been using the unsold flowers from the shop."

"If we didn't have that clan meeting to get to…" Choji muttered into the crook of his wife's neck.

"But we do." She chided.

"Yes, we do." He grumbled dispassionately. "I blame Shikamaru for that, him and his plans." She smelled so good, and since she had been away on a trip for a little over a week, he wasn't keen on moving any time soon. "Remind me again. Why did I agree to take the head position from my father? He's still in good health."

"Because it was your time to step up, and your clan noticed that." She kissed him once more, knowing that if he had his way about it, he would have scooped her into his arms and made a beeline for the bedroom by now. "We can't miss the meeting, but I plan to make an early night. Making the run from Kumogakure to Konoha is exhausting. I can see it now; you, me, and a bottle of sweet berry wine."

"You have no idea how amazing that sounds." He whispered, sighing away a week's worth of frustration. "I missed you, Karui."

"I know babe." She told him, basking in his embrace for just a moment longer. "I missed you too."


	3. Chapter 3

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 3**

The next few days were peaceful and calm, but Shikamaru knew it wasn't going to last. There was a tense feeling in the air, made worse when Temari was left alone to think at any length. He had finally conspired against her doing so. To keep her distracted, and he just so happened to have his mother and Noriko help with the task.

They'd taken to it with gusto, making it impossible for Temari to have too much idle time.

It was early morning, deep in the forest of Konohagakure. The head of the Nara clan found his bed empty when he woke from slumber. The blinds were pulled up, making the sunlight hit him in the face. He knew his wife did that for his own good, so that he wouldn't just roll over and ignore his tasks until late afternoon. Thankfully for him, she also remembered to put a clean pair of underwear on the bed, so he wouldn't strut in front of the large picture window naked.

With a groan of aggravation he dressed in the simple brown kosode. Meandering around his home searching for his wife yielded no results. The kitchen was unusually quiet, and her cursing was not to be found. Instead, what rested on the kitchen table were an assortment of clan related documents. She had clearly left abandoned, some of them marked for him to go over. Others were crumpled up into wads, and nearly overflowed the garbage bin. Though the dishes from last night were clean, they still waited on the drying rack to be put away. The shopping list from three days ago was still stuck to the refrigerator in a lopsided way.

None of this came as a shock to him, because his wife wasn't exactly a homemaker. She never had been, and she refused to be one. Clutter just so happened to be part of his life.

Shikamaru had a little time before he was supposed to meet for breakfast, gathering the ingredients for tea. She had left before even sampling a cup for herself, and for Temari that was a strange thing. A glance to the calendar, and it all came flooding back. He would look over clan documents later. First, he had to find Choji and Sai. Chances were good that the ladies wouldn't be joining them after all.

They were probably having one of their personal meetings, as was customary on this occasion.

* * *

Over at Ino's house, the three women gathered.

"Ino, what are these?" Temari asked as she looked at the small vial of pills placed in front of her.

"A special compound of herbs from the Yamanaka and Akimichi clans. It's been refined down to a pill." The thin blonde explained as simply. She handed Karui a vial of substance as well before settling herself back into her chair. "That fertility drug is crucial to the tactics of a formation team."

Temari frowned, it was true she had been married the longest, and that she hadn't actually achieved pregnancy. "I'm not so sure about using drugs, organic or not." Still, she thought fertility drugs to be a bit much. Though she had considered it out of desperation, facing reality made her feel anxious. "Is this really something we need to be using?"

"The boys will be taking a similar mixture. It will make the reproductive process a little easier." Ino nodded, knowing that this was one of their formation's best kept laws. Unspoken to outsiders, and for good reason. "A woman's body can sometimes be finicky, and we don't have the luxury to wait around for each other. Our children shouldn't be any more than a year or so apart. Raising them together is part of what makes a formation team so powerful."

"You know what might also help?" Temari asked as she crossed her arms. "If we had a little more alone time with our husbands. Shikamaru is hardly home at decent hours right now, and frankly put, our sex life has suffered for it."

"That's true." Karui tapped at the table in frustration. "Choji's been away for days, sometimes weeks on end dealing with missions. If he isn't sent out, I am. We miss windows of opportunity all that time." Then she grinned darkly, those perfectly white teeth of hers almost feral as she pounded a fist into her palm. "I'm half tempted to go threaten our dear old Hokage within an inch of his life."

Ino shared the lament, Sai was equally busy. "Which is why we're taking ourselves off all the rosters. As of today, the sixteenth heads of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation are going dark. No more missions for Choji, and most certainly none for Sai. Shikamaru and I will be relinquishing our village duties as well. There is a small home for formations teams for strictly this occasion. We will be staying there, away from most of life's stress."

"And you think that'll make things easier?" Karui asked. "Who is going to keep the clans from going insane?"

"We will still attend our weekly meetings, but our councilmen will have to act accordingly." Ino wasn't too worried. "Choza and Yoshino both pull enough clout between them even as council members. I know mom will do what needs to be done too. Other than marginal clan duties, consider this an extended vacation. We gather at the cottage at dawn."

* * *

Like the women had promised, they kept Temari busy late that evening while Shikamaru finished his work.

There were just some occasions that Ino didn't want to be privy to the kitchen table gossip, and unfortunately, she had walked straight into it. A towel wrapped around her head, she winced after seeing the gathering. Apparently a woman couldn't so much as take a shower without being bombarded with guests.

Hinata, Temari, Yoshino and Noriko were huddled around some very embarrassing photos of Ino's childhood. "I hope you aren't showing them any nudes…"

"Oh, don't be silly, we never took many of those." Her mother told her. "Actually, I was just telling Hinata about the time that you managed to get yourself lost while playing in the woods."

"For the last time, we weren't lost." Ino rebuked, with a small snip in her voice. What was it with her mother and that story? "We were simply geographically misplaced."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Hinata asked honestly.

"No." Ino said dryly. "It's really not..."

Noriko and Yoshino shared a look of complete vexation, but it was the former who spoke. "What Ino refuses to acknowledge, is that Shikaku sent the deer looking for them. We found Shikamaru and Choji that way, but it took a full day of searching before we found that one." She said, pointing to her now blushing daughter.

"Mother..."

Noriko pointedly ignored Ino. "Low and behold she had somehow wiggled her way under the gate that separates the Hyuga training ground from the Nara forests. She had your whole clan in an uproar. Neji started squalling that the bad men were back to get you again."

"Mom...please..." Ino muttered, a palm coming up to hide her face.

"Oh no, Ino you didn't." Hinata asked behind a fit of giggles.

"She most certainly did." Noriko continued. "When Hiashi realized it was Ino that had gotten into the yard, and not any Kumogakure spies, he was fit to be tied. Came right up to the front of the flower shop holding Ino by the collar of her shirt. I knew he must have lectured her."

"I have never seen that man so livid." Yoshino pipped up. "He was so red in the face, it was almost worth it for that alone. Choji and Shikamaru were hiding behind me scared shitless."

Hinata let a little smile show. She could hazard a guess to his reaction. "Well, I must admit, my father does have a particular a way about him." He would instill the fear of god into anyone who caused an unsightly rucks. "I hope he wasn't too cross."

Ino gave her mother a look. "You know, this isn't exactly a story that you should be bringing up, especially considering the formation."

"Karui finds it hysterical." Temari was grinning from ear to ear. "We've heard this one before, I thought Hinata might find it amusing."

Ino threw her hands up into the air. "Oh, great, hey let's all make light of the Hyuga affair. That's just awesome for village politics. Doesn't really matter that Hinata was almost kidnapped by Kumogakure jonin. Or that Kumo and Konoha were at each other's throats for almost twenty years."

"If we're going to argue semantics, dear, it was fifteen years to be exact." Noriko said.

She rolled her eyes and reached for the sake that sat in the middle of the table. It was empty, and both Noriko and Yoshino reeked of it."And now I can't even have a drink, because you lushes had at it already." Settling for some of the juice that was left, Ino sat down at the table. "I'll have you know that getting lost was a very traumatizing event."

"From what I hear, you must not have been too traumatized." Temari was far too smitten from across the table.

"Traitor." Ino hissed cattily.

"In any case, the whole situation made a big mess." It was Yoshino who truly found herself astounded by what had happened next. "Our children were clap traps. The whole lot of them. I still don't know whose brilliant idea it was to into the forests unsupervised. Shikaku, Choza, Inoichi, and Hiashi divided them up, and they still didn't make a peep."

Ino hadn't cracked under Hiashi's lectures? Hinata leaned forward a little more than she intended. "Impressive. My father can be absolutely terrifying. Since we're on the topic though...who did happen to think of it?"

"It had to have been mine. Takes after her father, that one." Noriko had long had her suspicions as she sent her daughter a sideways glance.

Ino stuck out her tongue. "Not that you have any proof. We didn't say it then, and I'm not saying it now."

"Sounds like me and my brothers. We lied through our teeth almost every day." Temari didn't talk much about those days. "Kankuro came up with the worst ideas, and Gaara was little. If Kankuro said to do something, Gaara would. I ended up having to cover for the two of them. Between me and Kankuro, we got our asses beat more than once when it came to Gaara." It wasn't until later that she realized why. Gaara was prone to accidental killings and bloodshed. Her father's heavy handedness was to protect them, but that wasn't something Temari understood until Gaara was inexplicably covered in blood that was not his own. "Amazing what siblings, or good friends, can get into."

"History will repeat, that much I'm sure of. I give it a couple of years before the entire village is thrown into chaos with this next batch." Noriko replied then, a gleam in her eyes. "You ladies will have your hands full, especially you Hinata. I pray your genes are strong enough to beat out the Uzumaki line. Your husband was a holy terror as a child, and that he got from his mother. She was a holy terror too."

"That doesn't matter." Yoshino sighed. "If it isn't their brood, it'll be either the Yamanaka or the Nara, you just mark my words."

It was at this, that Hinata cleared her throat. A tiny blush on her cheeks. "If we're speculating, then my bets are on the Sarutobi clan. Konohamaru was Naruto's first student, and they share a lot in common. It could also be Kurenai's daughter, she's very rambunctious too. If you think history must repeat, then it's only logical for it to come full circle."

"Full circle, huh?" Yoshino smiled a bit sadly at that. "Well, I would never speak ill of it, but I'm sure Lord Third's spirit would find that fitting."

"Asuma too." Ino murmured. "I'm sure he'd doesn't want his daughter to lose to anyone. What about you, Temari? Do you have a wager?"

"Given my bloodline, any child I have is going to be a hell of a little smartass." Temari looked down at her empty tea cup. "Given that, to be honest, I'm not sure. To borrow Shika's words, though, it's going to be troublesome either way."

 


	4. Chapter 4

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 4**

Ino's hand came down hard on the alarm clock when the incessant beeping infiltrated her ears. She cursed her luck, as it forcefully dragged her away from her peaceful dream. Then she rolled over, not quite ready to leave the warmth of her bed yet.

Her husband stirred beside her.

Sai was a strange sort of man, always easily befuddled by the little nuances of life. The bigger picture was something he just couldn't see, because he was too busy looking for the details he missed. His upbringing was to blame for it, and Ino didn't fault him. Still, after an entire year of being married to the guy, she thought that he would have gotten used to some things by now.

Things like shyness, and his overt curiosity about the simplest things.

Expression interested him like a kitten drawn to water. His hands and his intentions weren't so innocent though. She felt him take a deep breath when her leg met his arousal. She gently nipped on her tongue when she realized that she had likely haunted his dreams that night. His hand ran up her leg, palm gliding over her shapely ass, squeezing, as if to experiment. She should have expected it really, but all she could do was lay still.

See how far me might take things.

His fingers teasingly drifted from her ass to her hip, his thumb slipping beneath the fabric of her underwear. Lingering only the slightest moment before retreating entirely. Ino waited, but he didn't move. She rolled over onto her other side. He spooned against her immediately, missing the contact. She let herself be held by him, her breath calm and steady, the same as his.

She felt his hands wander again.

A soft moan escaped her lips. His fingers were toying just along the hem of her sleeping shirt, and he was grazing along her taunt midriff. "Sai?" She wondered tiredly at just what he thought he was doing. His thumb played across her silk panties. "Ah!" Then a little lower. "Oh god…"

She bit her lower lip, the man was sometimes too much. His eyes were closed, but his cheeks were a dark red. She could feel them warming from his deep blush. She grabbed at his wrist, his fingers trailing moisture along her inner thigh. It felt so good, but she could tell that something was bothering him.

"Care to tell me what brought this on?"

Sai opened one eye timidly before the other followed. He moved his hand from her hold, and splayed it across over her belly once more. "I was just thinking."

"No kidding." She knew exactly what he was thinking about, too. "It's a good thing I'm a morning person, you know. So, just tell me what's on your mind?"

"I don't think I can put it into words without being offensive." Sai said after a little bit of thought.

"There's very little you can say that offends me anymore, you know that." Ino laughed, lifting her hands to comb through her long blonde hair.

"My dick won't go down." He gave her a long, lingering look. "We have to get ready to meet everyone else though, and I know you don't like to be quick about things."

Ino tossed off the covers. Even from beneath his boxers, his length was impressive. She glanced at the clock and let her cat-like grin spread across her face. They had time for a quickie before they met everyone else up at the cottage. She didn't favor them, but, it didn't hurt to have a little morning romp every now and then.

"You're right." She said, pulling her panties off and discarding them someplace that she really wasn't paying attention to. Reaching into his boxers, she have him a firm squeeze, using just the kind of pressure. She knew it drove him crazy. "We don't have much time, but if you do what I say, it'll be just enough to take the edge off."

* * *

The cottage was located deep within the protection of the Ino-Shika-Cho territories, and well away from most other villagers. It was a small three bedroom home, large enough to comfortably house a formation team, but not much else. An open fire pit sat on the outside, and the inside contained all of the usual amenities. The bath was large, and Temari and Karui both exchanged dirty looks, both of them speculating just what some formation teams got up to whenever they came here.

It was no secret that some teams were simply closer than what might be considered normal, even among the allied clans.

"I don't even want to know what perversity people get up to around here." Karui said, as she examined the pristine clean of the room. The whole house was well kept, but that only made her mind speculate the worst. "People clean this good, it means they have something to hide."

"Orgy in the bathroom, that's classic." Temari said with a roll of her eyes. "Just like snack time in the kitchen, and christening the living room."

Karui shared in Temari's dangerous little smirk. "You have some weird kink I don't know about, Tem?"

"Not a chance in hell." Arms crossed as they walked back across the hall and into the kitchen. "Touch Shika, I'll kill you."

"No kidding." Karui agreed, her hand resting on her hip. It was the same one that just so happened to have a few kunai attached to it. "Choji's mine."

"You know," Ino began thoughtfully, "Now that you two have said it, you've cursed your own luck."

"Nothing doing." Karui snorted off handedly. "There has never been a person to get between my legs that wasn't well hung." Karui shot back. "Mission or otherwise."

"Wait a minute! Are you telling me that you've never had to seduce a woman before? Not even once?"

"Ino the gossip queen, strikes again." Temari shook her head as she and Karui began to help finish stocking the kitchen. "Why am I not surprised?"

Karui indulged their good friend as she thought back, a sly smile playing across her dark lips. "I've only been on two seduction missions. Both of them, the targets were men."

"Lucky," Ino took a seat at the table. "I've had a whole handful of seduction missions, and they've ran the gambit. I don't mind seducing women though, a target's a target. That's all there is to it. Get the mission done, and go home."

It was only then, when Temari realized that both eyes were on her. She stopped putting away the canned goods. "Oh alright, fine. I haven't run any seduction missions on official record. However, I did put on a show with a couple of my comrades once when things got a little dicey." She had never been put on a seduction mission roster, and she wasn't about to start now. "I made Shikamaru pull his name off of the seduction rosters shortly after we were married."

Karui wholeheartedly agreed. "I pulled Choji's name off of the chart as soon as I kissed the man…and you can be sure I never transferred my seduction dossier over to Konoha."

"You two are way too possessive." Ino laughed, though she shared the same sentiment to a degree. Shikamaru and Choji were too loyal to ever think about betraying their wives. "Sai and I both kept our names on the seduction duty list."

"Not that he would ever be chosen." Karui said knowingly.

"And for that we can all be very thankful, including the mission targets." Ino kept him on a tight leash, so the younger village girls wouldn't turn his head. "He's cute, but he's too curious for those kinds of missions. He'll get himself into trouble."

They continued to unpack in relative silence, until Temari made a comment on how clean even the cupboards were.

Ino nodded. "I had a few Yamanaka genin come up here yesterday. They polished up the place so that we wouldn't have to spend the day doing that ourselves. The last team to come up here were from the branch of our families. That was over a year ago though, so I knew the house was going to be dusty."

"Just because I'm curious, what is the ratio for formation teams that actually have open relationships?" Temari asked. She's always avoided that kind of conversation, but since they happened to be on the topic. "I know it has to carry more weight than people actually talk about."

Ino thought about this as she went about stocking the cupboards and chill chest with provisions. "It's not exactly a staggering number. Successful formation teams tend to go one of two ways. They end up acting like siblings, and maintain a family structure based on that, like we do…or…" Ino shrugged, there was only one other option. "They become lovers."

"Ew." Karui knew it occurred, but she didn't like thinking about it.

"That doesn't really answer my question, Ino." Temari said. "How many teams are we talking here?"

"Well, there are three teams I know of offhand." Ino wasn't sure how many kept quiet, but she was sure that many did. "It's really not anyone's place to stop a formation team from living how they want to live. Well, as long as they aren't doing anything inherently wrong. If they want to build their families that way, it's normally fine."

"Speaking of family, where did your so called brothers wander off to?" Karui hadn't seen Choji since she had brought in the suitcases.

Ino closed her eyes, searching. "Shikamaru's out fishing, and Choji's gathering firewood."

"Where's Sai?" Temari asked, as Ino jumped a bit.

"That answers that question." Karui laughed.

"He resting." She said a bit more pleasantly than she would have liked. "I put him through his paces earlier before we came up."

"The poor bastard." Temari grinned, going back to work.

They shared a round of laughs at that, Ino's playful wink telling them all they needed, or even wanted to know.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 5**

Under the normal stress of village life, it was hard for them to gather together every day. To combat this, breakfast and dinner were normally times that formation teams always spent together. Now that they had relinquished many of their usual duties, though, the breakfast table was a little more empty than usual the next morning.

Temari entered into the kitchen dressed in a robe, searching for the tea tray.

"It's about time you two woke up." Karui said from her place, her eyes leisurely scanning the newspaper.

"We've been awake for hours." She said quietly, gathering two cups of black tea and a few morning pastries from the jar on the counter. "I don't know what everyone else has planned, but I think Shikamaru and I are staying in today."

"Choji and Sai have gone fishing, and last time I saw Ino was an hour ago soaking in the bath with a book." Truth be told, Karui was content to actually have the kitchen to herself for once. "I'm going to relax a bit more, and then probably spend the morning baking.

"I was wondering why you had all that condensed milk packed away." Temari never did understand the joy of baking, even though she knew Karui was good at it. "Ino brought up a few of Sai's painted vases, so we'll be doing some wildflower arrangements later if you want to join us." She merely shrugged, gathering two cloth napkins and a few handfuls of fresh berries that she put in a small bowl. "For now though, I'm going back to my room."

"Don't break the man." Karui called after her loudly enough for Temari to hear.

When Temari entered into the room that she was staying in along with Shikamaru, she was surprised to see that he was actually sitting up. She was sure that he would flop back over onto his belly close his eyes and fall asleep, sheets still forgotten halfway down his torso. That was his usual motivation, especially when she woke him up before noon on days off. Instead, he was fighting off his sleepiness, seemingly losing the battle.

Stretching as he yawned, his messy hair framed his face wildly.

"So you aren't dead to the world after all." Temari said as she gently slid the door closed behind her. "Turning over a new leaf, or should I just be glad you have your eyes open."

"Smartass." He snorted with a cocky little grin.

"Better than a dumbass." She came to sit on the bed, carefully setting the tray in front of them. "You like the challenge, and you know it." Shrugging away the robe left her clad in a short spaghetti strap sleeping gown. It only came down the middle of her thighs, leaving her long legs exposed. "You haven't been sleeping like you usually do."

"Aye," He took the cup of tea in hand, looking down at the dark liquid within. "You've been just a little tense recently, so I've been worried."

"Tense?" She forced a fake smile. "I think you're seeing things Shika."

"Am I?" He took a sip before quickly setting the mug down. Moving the tray so that he wouldn't knock it over, he maneuvered his wife into his lap. Searching her green eyes for the real truth beneath everything. "You're so beautiful, even just looking into your eyes inspires me to do bad things…" He gave her ass a hard squeeze as his smile fell. He took the warm mug of tea from her hands. "I like to think I know you pretty well by now. You've been fixated on something for a long time."

"It's nothing."

"Bullshit."

"Shikamaru…"

"It's something, Temari." He said as his hands found their resting place on her hips. "You get really aggressive and dominant when somethings bothering you."

"You usually like that." Temari rolled her hips, and he realized she wasn't wearing anything under that nightgown of hers. "You sure you want to have this conversation, Shika?"

He softened his gaze. "I asked, didn't I?" Her soft womanhood felt so damn good pressed against him, but he knew something was wrong.

"That's some damn thin ice you're walking on right now." she told him hotly. "You know that, don't you?"

When she rolled her hips again, he smacked her exposed ass.

"Stop that." He said, squeezing that plump butt cheek. "Talk to me."

"Let it go." She told him, but she knew that look in his eyes.

"No."

"Damn it, Shika."

"Talk."

Knew it too damn well, because both of them were the same sort of person. She would have pushed him into talking too. She'd done it so many times in the past. She forgot what that bitterness tasted like aimed directly at her.

"How badly do you want to be a father?" She had never exactly asked, because deep down, it went without saying. They would need to have at least one child. When she was younger, she had never wanted children of her own. It was only after getting married that her mind had started to change. Over their two years of married life, she had started to see the idea of having a child less like a circumstance of married life, and more like the future she wanted to have…even though she still had her doubts.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Tem?"

"I have no doubt in my mind that I'm going to be the worst parent alive." She told him. "I can't even cook a full meal without burning something, and you know what I do to the ironing." She closed her eyes, her forehead falling onto his shoulder as her arms wrapped around him. "I have never been the type of woman to give into the stereotypes of what I should or shouldn't do, but we both know it. I'm not domestic. I'm a kunoichi. I was raised to be daddy's little warrior, and I used to be fine with that, but god-damn."

Silently, he put his arms around her, listening to a tirade she had probably been holding back for far too long.

"I keep thinking of a little version of you giving me all sorts of hell…" Her voice began to crack, and she sighed, hard and long. "And when I think about that…I know that's the longstanding future the Nara clan has been pushing for." It didn't help, and her composure was lost to her soft sobs. "I look at these god-damn supplements. I think to myself that this is what it's come down to. I can't even have a baby without drugs."

Her nails dug into his back painfully. "I can't even do the one thing I should be able to do."

Shikamaru felt like he was about to lose it too. She'd never told him how much her inability to conceive was actually bothering her. Her heart was shattering in his hands, and he had no idea what to do. So he held her while she cried. Hid his face in the crook if her neck, so that he could do the same.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 6**

"What are you doing?"

"Reading over clan documents."

"Oh."

Sai sat still as he observed his wife, laying out in the hot sun with a pen in her hand. He didn't know why she adored laying out under the sun so much, especially when she always covered herself in sunscreen in the first place. The idea was counterintuitive, although he knew better than to say that. There was something incredibly sexy in the few times she let her long tresses flow freely. She normally kept it up and out of the way.

"What are the documents about?"

"Cash allotments."

"For the clan?"

"To the particularly young, the infirm, and the civilian quadrant."

"Need help?"

"No, these are just the new laws passed by the Hokage. I just have to read them and sign my name."

Her tone took on a slightly annoyed edge. Sai began to doodle with his ink pen, drawing swirls of black and grey, something he did while deep in thought. They may have all agreed on an afternoon picnic, but it was clear that some people were more relaxed than others. He stood, not finding the ground to be comfortable. "I'm going to go spar with Shikamaru."

"No chakra." Ino said distractedly as she flipped the page.

"Affirmative." Sai agreed, though he was very unhappy about that little detail. "No chakra..."

* * *

Not too far away, Choji lazily watched the goings on.

If he hadn't been born and raised a ninja, he would have liked to be a fisherman. If he wasn't able to be near the coast, he would have been a farmer. If he had been born in a big city, he'd move out into open land and start up a tea shop. That's what Choji Akimichi considered ambition. He enjoyed the little fantasies of what his life would have been like, if he hadn't conformed to clan life. When he was younger, he had daydreamed about those kinds of things with Shikamaru a lot.

Dreamed about peaceful days and simple life.

Not that life as a ninja was complicated by any means. The path itself was actually fairly simple. The path for him had been lain out since the day he was born. Become strong, lead the clan, produce the next heir, and teach them to do the same. It was pretty straightforward when he thought about it like that. Of course, whenever he did, Shikamaru or Ino would burst his little bubble by telling him how difficult it would actually be.

They focused on the missions, the hard training, and the survivalist lifestyle that being on the road demanded.

Choji had long remained unconvinced. Konoha lacked many of the problems of city life, but the village continued to grow. If it continued on at the rate it was, they'd have to start building up, rather than building out. Land expansion talks were already underway to secure more territory for villagers brave enough to settles outside of the walls.

This would mean more village funding, which would be nice, but Choji wasn't too keen on having the population grow any larger than it already had. It would mean more security, and that meant more work for the Akimichi clan, who worked closely with ANBU and other high ranking personnel.

This in turn meant more training for him, and his formation team.

Choji hated training the most, because he didn't want to hurt anyone. He didn't like fighting, even if he knew it was something that needed to happen if they wanted to stay in top form. Without most of their chakra though, it was mostly standard hand-to-hand combat rotations.

"They should give it a rest." Karui said from her place in Choji's lap. "It's far too nice a day for this."

As he sat on the soft dirt of the sparring circle, he watched Sai and Shikamaru duke it out. "I can't say I'm surprised. Honestly, I'm more worried about Temari taking down that tree over there."

She was flying through her standard warmup with a vengeance it seemed. Karui could only guess at what had her so railed up, but she grinned to herself. "I guess it can't be helped then."

"Maybe not, but you're right about one thing. It's too nice a day to be doing all of that." He wasn't entirely sure why, but it seemed like the perfect day to take in the environment. "Don't suppose you have any more lemonade in that canister, do you?"

Karui nodded, as she poured him another cup. "There's still a few slices of the apricot pie as well."

"Not going to turn that down." He said pleasantly, partaking the slice she handed to him. "You know, people can say what they want about the ninja way. I certainly don't hate the honor of taking missions. I still find that you just can beat days like today."

"You know my stance on that." Her words rang true.

Choji conceded, not envying Shikamaru of his position as he kept sidestepping Sai's attacks. "Now if only they would agree with the sentiment."

Pretty much everyone knew that Karui wasn't a fan drills. She was as rough around the edges as they came. She might not have let herself grow weak by any means, but, now that she was married, she wasn't on her own anymore. Karui would never let it be said that she couldn't hold her own in a fight, because she very much could. Still, that old drive to be stronger than the rest had tempered out. The violence she was so prone to, had begun to fizzle out along with it.

With Choji around, it just wasn't worth the time. The effort to beat someone bloody was just too tiresome, and unless she was on a mission, she had better things to be doing. She liked a bit of scrapping every now and then, but didn't every ninja? She commanded the respected she needed to, and since she was spoken for, she left the rest of the matter to Choji. It worked out better for her, and anyone idiotic enough to cross her path on a bad day.

"Someone really should go pick a fight with Temari." She sighed. "Running rotations on an inanimate object is genin's training."

"What are you giving me that look for?" Choji balked. "I don't want to be on the wrong end of her temper."

"And I'd assume you'd like to be on the wrong end of mine?" Karui replied, one dark, slender eyebrow raised. "I would go spar with her, but _somebody_ put me in charge of clan finances. That means I have sixty pages to go over before next week."

He sighed as he finished his lemonade. "I'm not going to have a choice in this, am I?"

"Well that depends," Karui said sweetly handing him the documents. "You could fill these out in my place."

He hated math, and he hated budget planning. Math had never been his strongest suit, he had the mind of a commander, not a paper pusher. "Your point has been well made." Taking one last piece of pie in hand, he drowned his sorrows. "I'll go spar with Temari."

Karui almost laughed at his defeated expression. "She'll be thankful for it too, you'll see."

"The things I do to avoid paperwork." He muttered as he resigned himself to the task at hand.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Fulfilling the Oath  
Chapter 7**

The picnic left them full, and a game of cards lasted well into the evening. Ino had been missing from the table game, and had spent some time to herself. Later, when night fell, Ino pulled Temari aside. She'd heard, and felt the aguish that had been rolling off of the Nara couple and decided she needed to do something...

The choice hadn't been an easy one. "I need to show you something." She said slowly, nervous inwardly, but refusing to show it.

"Maybe later, Ino." Temari was just so tired. "I'm thinking about going to bed."

"No, now." She pushed Temari into the bath and slid the door closed. "I have to show you this now." The hot moist air was sticky. "It's important, okay? So just give me a second." Ino shucked off the clothing she had donned for dinner, piece by piece. "I was thinking about it all day, and, I decided that it would probably do you some good if you knew that you weren't the only one running mental gymnastics in your head about all of this."

Her hands formed seals, a blue glow of chakra waved over Ino's body before scars appeared everywhere.

Temari gasped, a hand flying to her mouth in horror. "Ino, holy shit!"

Ino didn't say a word, she just made a grab for Temari's hand. She put it over one fairly deep scar in particular. When Temari tried to pull away, Ino held firm. "Feel that? That's a surgical scar. That ovary is missing."

"Ino…Christ." It was too much to take in. Temari couldn't help but feel sick. What could she even say to that? Empty words? She wasn't that big of a bitch. She kept quiet, averted her eyes, and pretended she hadn't seen the old wounds.

"That's what you're going to do?" Ino hissed, brows slanting angrily. "Flinch away when something hits just a little too close to home for you?"

"It's not like that…" Temari growled through gritted teeth. "Sweet Jesus though, look at you."

The long haired blond just sighed, as she filled a bucket with water, splashing it over herself a few times before going back to the same thing she had been doing all evening. Sitting in a hot bath, thinking long, and thinking hard. "It happened when I was still a fairly new a chunin. A solo D-rank mission got a little too personal. Before I knew it, Asuma found me beaten to hell. He brought me to Tsunade." It didn't hurt to talk about it, not anymore, but Ino liked her vanity. "Tem, soak with me…"

Temari quietly began to get undressed, grabbing a stool and sitting it in front of the low-lying showerhead. "I'm listening…"

"For my sake, Tsunade slapped an S-rank classified sticker on the mission report, and demanded that no one speak of it casually. She taught me how to cover up the scars without depleting too much chakra." Ino said over the sounds of water splashing over Temari's form. They went to the bathhouse all the time, so this really wasn't any different. "I'm sure Asuma took the truth of it to his grave. That's just the kind of teacher he was. He'd never betray that. My father, well, he was the same kind of person."

"Choji and Shikamaru don't know?" Temari found that hard to believe. "You haven't told them?"

For a short time, Ino stayed quiet, until she found the right words. "I'm sure Shikamaru has seen the file by now. Given that he works in the Hokage tower, he's probably come across it. He's not the type to say anything that'll complicate matters. I don't think Choji has the stomach to see these on me, he really is too gentle of a guy."

"What about Sai?"

Ino paused again, this time, her voice wavered a bit. "I showed him once..." She swallowed hard. "Before we got married." She shook her head. He hadn't been phased by it, but why would he? Sai wasn't the kind of person to ask questions about battle scars. "Naturally, since Sakura is my general practitioner, she knows. In my opinion, that's as far as it needs to go."

Temari made a small sound of agreement, but then nipped at the one thing that demanded an answer. "Why show me?"

That was a damn good question. Ino regarded Temari distantly, her eyes flicking to the woman every so often, just to meet her gaze briefly. "I'm your doctor." That reason in and of itself, was all Ino really needed, but she chose to elaborate. "It's my job to make sure that you stay in top form. You're also my friend though, and I think it's time we talked."

Temari sighed. "Fine."

So, they talked.

They talked about a lot of little things, playing at the deeper underlying issues. Ino had never been the one to scrutinize the deeper meanings behind her old injuries. Everyone had something, and scars riddled all of them. It didn't matter if they could be seen or not. She knew Temari was taking her situation a little more personally than Ino would have liked. Still, wasn't that just another tie that bound them as the women of their respective clans?

Wasn't it that one defining characteristic? That drive to see their promises through to the bitter end. Wasn't that what gave them mutual respect, when sometimes they had nothing else?

So they talked, because talking was all they could really do. Eventually though, Ino brought the conversation full circle, and Temari found herself on edge.

"I hated you, back when we were genin. During that first exam, when you faced Tenten. I thought to myself that a girl like you didn't know what it meant to actually care about people. Or to value the lives of others." Ino said conversationally. It was all water under the bridge now, but at the time, Ino…actually probably all of the Konoha eleven were completely mortified. "I wasn't okay with those circumstances. I wasn't okay with a lot of those fights. Or how they turned out…"

Temari just scoffed. "Strange thing to bring up after all these years, isn't it?"

"Not really." Ino shrugged, her voice echoing gently off of the walls. "We don't get to choose our circumstances, that just part of the lives we live. Making the hard calls are part of the job. We do that, and then we move on. I know you believe that firmly, you're a fighter. That's what you are."

"No shit."

Ino ignored the abrasive comment. She expected worse. "It was a hard thing to swallow, but now that I look back, I'm glad Tenten got her ass kicked."

"Hell of a statement coming from you."

"Is it?"

"Ino..."

The woman in question just shrugged. "Look, I'm glad it was you that beat her. There couldn't be an argument made about gender supremacy." Ino sighed, thinking about her own match with Sakura. How much of a failure they both proved themselves to be at that time. "Young ninja, kunoichi especially, carry around that added baggage. We grow up knowing that if we don't toughen up like the guys, we'll end up washing out. We have to match them at least, or we're goners on missions."

"Ino, you going somewhere with this?"

She was in fact. It was just hard to say. Still, if Temari wanted her to be blunt, she would be. "Stop beating yourself up. This is one of those circumstances you just can't retaliate against. You just have to swallow the facts as they come." Ino said, cutting to the core of the matter so thoroughly that Temari grit her teeth. "You can entrust your back to me in a fight, right?"

"I have before, haven't I?"

"Then trust me now." Ino demanded. "I made the hard call here, and I know you don't like it. It came down to circumstance, but that's not your fault. You're not to blame for this. When you breed one genetic trait over, and over, and over again, you filter out others. For most people that takes hundreds of thousands of years, but for ninja like us, that time is significantly decreased."

"It's easy for you to say that, Ino but-"

"I say it because it's true."

"That doesn't make it any easier to deal with." Temari barked. "You're just going to explain away everything like that? Is it really so simple to you?"

"It's complicated." Ino admitted. "I know that. Thanks to chakra and bloodline, you can breed out negative traits in a matter of just a few generations. The problem is, all of that inbreeding comes at a cost. Some mutations are good, others are bad. That is in essence what a bloodline limit is. It's a genetic mutation of cells that have been cultivated by breeding dominant traits over, and over, and over again. Our clans just happen to have a bloodline that's particular."

Temari didn't say a word, and Ino swore under her breath.

After some time, Temari's words quietly met the air. "It's hard to justify that when you're raised the way that I was." In fact, Temari was sure that if she were in Suna, her name would have been long since slandered. "It may be the truth, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm the one who married into Shikamaru's clan."

"That's right, it's his clan. It's his bloodline." Ino told her. "It's a clan fault, it's a bloodline fault…but it is _not_ your fault Temari. Besides, like I told you before, Sai isn't going to have an easy time with me...now you know why."

 


End file.
